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Even Lynder and Hobie, though they had not actually foughtwith
Kyrtian's troops against the Young Lords, had trained long and hard with all
of Kyrtian's men and reacted immediately tohis barked order. By the time the
construct had gotten to its fullheight, Kyrtian, Lynder and Hobie were all out
of its field of vi-sion or so he hoped under a slope of metal that cast a
deep,black shadow.
And I only hope this thing doesn't decide to come alive,too he
thought, squeezing as far out of sight as he could, though his skin shrank
from contact with the chill and slightlygreasy metal.
When they had all tucked in and gone immobile, he risked aglance at
the wall and the half-circle of lanterns. Shana and Ke- man were nowhere in
sight, but at least they were nowhereinhis line-of-sight. He had to hope that
if he couldn't see them,neither could the construct. If it "saw," that is. It
might use othersenses....
"Now what?" Lynder hissed into Kyrtian's ear. He sounded as desperate
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as Kyrtian felt.
"I'm thinking!" he hissed back. He wasn't worried about thatthing
hearing them; the victim it had in its claw was making enough noise to cover
just about anything. The screaming washorrible, but worse was the feeling that
he knew the torturedvoice.
The victim An Elvenlord; he'd seen enough in that momentof horror to
know it wasn't a human. But who? Who could havefollowed him here, and why? Not
any of Lord Kyndreth's peo-ple, since none of them knew where he was going,
precisely,and surely none of his own.
The victim blubbered between the screams, incoherent in his terror.
It was sickening to listen to.
No, none of them would have trailed after me, simply be-cause none of
them couldhave. They 're all totally unsuited totramping about in the
wilderness, thank the Ancestors.
As frightening as the screams was thesilence beneath it. The
construct made no sound at all.
The only personlikely to have followed him, and with theskills to do
so, would have been Gel, and it certainly wasn't Gel in that monster's claw!
Yet the voicewas familiar.
Who then? He strained to make out anything in the screamsand
babbling to give him a clue, as his mouth dried with fear and his insides
seemed to turn to water. An enemy, then? Butwhat enemy would have followed him
on what wassupposed to be a fairly dangerous mission to hunt out Wizards? An
en-emy looking for something to discredit him with perhaps? An enemy planning
to find, or plant, something to Kyrtian's harm.Or even an enemy hoping to
arrange an "accident" out herewhere there would be no witnesses? That was
something that Aelmarkin
Ancestors!he thought, stunned, nowhearing what was fa-miliar in those
screams and wails echoing across the cavern.It's Aelmarkin!
That Aelmarkin hated him enough to try to discredit or mur- der him
was no surprise, but that he'd actually dare the wilder-
ness to do so was something so out-of-character that he couldn't
berate himself for not thinking of it before. His worstenemy
Who has managed to blunder intothis.
Fortunately, he did not have the time to battle his conscience over
whether or not to attempt a rescue; there was a whine, and a flash of light
sweeping across the cave floor, and the screams cut off with dreadful
finality. The three sheltering beneath the still (thankfully!) lifeless
construct became very quiet, hardlydaring to breathe, as silence descended
with leaden suddenness.
Kyrtian fought down the urge to bolt for the mouth of thecave that
had brought them here. Who knew what sort of weapons this thing had?
No magic,Kyrtian decided.Especially not levin-bolts. If thismonster
was what had been feeding on his mage-lights and draining them, what sort of
power would a levin-bolt give it?Or worse what if another of the constructs
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absorbed thepower and came awake? He was fairly certain that this onewasn'tthe
one that had gotten his father though his fathermust certainly have awakened
one or another of the behemoths,probably by using mage-lights. This one was
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